The present invention relates to a method for moving an endoscope along a canal-shaped cavity.
Endoscopes have become an important aid in technology and medicine for inspecting canal-shaped cavities that are otherwise inaccessible or only accessible with considerable intervention. Endoscopes are equipped at the distal end with illuminating means and with an optical system for visually detecting the area of the cavity located therebefore. The optical information detected at the distal end of the endoscope is normally either transmitted through the endoscope to the proximal operating end by means of fiber optics, or detected at the distal end by means of a camera chip, guided through an electric wire to the proximal end of the endoscope and made visible on a monitor. Endoscopes customarily have an overall elongate, flexible-rod shape, disregarding the proximal operating end.
To permit inspection of a canal-shaped cavity the endoscope is introduced into the cavity through an access opening. The endoscope is customarily moved further inside by an operating person acting with his hand on the part of the endoscope protruding out of the access opening and from there gradually pushing the endoscope, which is rigid when pushed, ever further into the cavity.
It is relatively troublesome to move the endoscope increasingly into the canal-shaped cavity. It is particularly difficult to advance the endoscope when the canal-shaped cavity to be inspected has narrow bends, strictures or the like. When the canal-shaped cavity has an unsmooth wall consisting of a rather unsolid material there is a danger of the distal end getting stuck on the cavity wall during its advance; this can cause damage to the cavity wall. Particularly when the cavity has several bends the push from the posterior end of the endoscope exerts considerable pressure from the inside against the wall areas located on the outside of the bend. This complicates the further advance of the endoscope.